Follow the crazy adventures of an Alabama cyclist taking on the Race Across America in 2015.

GCGP Day 1 – Road Atlanta Circuit Race

What a disappointing race. I missed the original break b/c I thought it was missing TT1, but in fact there were TWO tt1 riders, Dan Holt in the initial move and Alexey Schmidt in a bridge group with Mike Stone (Hincapie Devo). It was a large field combined with the Cat 3s and the fading light it was hard to recognize kits – especially since I started near the back and didn’t move up to the front quickly enough.

About halfway through the race and completely frustrated about missing the move once I realized TT1 must have had a rider up the road by the way they were covering moves in the field, I attacked hard to bridge across. Ended up rolling solo for half a lap rather than establishing a chase group. Once I was caught, I recovered and tried to stay near the front. With four laps to go (2.5 miles per lap), Joey Rosskopf (TT1) attacked hard at the bottom of the pit row hill. I bridged across to him by the top of the hill. David Guttenplan (United Health Care/707) bridged next with Joe Eldridge (TT1). Also, there was a cat 3 with them. The field sat up, and we had a huge gap.

Still, there wasn’t good cohesion until we caught Eric Murphy (UHC/707) and another rider. We got into a rotation for a minute or two, but there were people sitting on. Eric and David pulled hard and a gap opened up to the rider behind them. I looked to TT1 to close it down but they didn’t so I pulled hard and ended up rolling off the group. I couldn’t catch UHC by myself so I sat up thinking we could still work together but it was too late. Field caught us at the start of the last lap. I was 10th or so in the field sprint for 17th or 18th in the race. Meanwhile, Eric and David completed the bridge to the leaders where David ended up winning the group sprint for 3rd — with Alex Schmidt and Mike Stone already off the front of that group to take 1st and 2nd.

Even though it was disappointing the way the race turned out, on the bright side, there was a beautiful sunset sky immediately after the race was over.